Saudi fund to relieve Softbank of 25pc of ARM

Less than a year after buying ARM, Japanese telecoms giant Softbank was set to sell a quarter of the British chip manufacturer to a Saudi Arabian investment group, it was reported on Wednesday.

The stake was reportedly worth £6.5bn, or 25% of ARM’s total value, and was being offloaded to Saudi Arabia’s newly-established ‘Vision Fund’/

Softbank was already set to put $25m into the new fund - worth $100bn overall - with the ARM stake being in addition to that.

It was understood that the Prime Minister’s office was not raising any concerns over the deal, according to the Financial Times.

Neither Softbank nor ARM responded to requests for comment from a number of media outlets on Wednesday.

Since being taken over by Softbank, ARM has been gradually swallowing a number of players in the Internet of Things space, taking on fellow British business NextG-Com and Sweden’s Mistbase.